With Snag, writer-director-actor Ben Milliken, along with editor Mark Manos, shows us that he knows how to place texts in the frame in a "cool manner." The words "Then" and "Now" are neatly inserted on the ground or on a watch, and the movie nimbly moves between the past and the present. This lightness (for a while, at least) can be found in the story, which has scenes like the one where a man points his gun at the wrong person. There is another man who talks about his injurious experience of watching a horror film. You also have another man who digs the ground for money, only to be told that the bag was in a closet from the beginning. The opening credits, as well as the opening bar scene, establish Snag as a Western gone comic. Yet, the movie fails to live up to its promise.
Snag starts to sink when it tries to become tearful and heavy. The emotional flashbacks are emotionally unconvincing because we are not invested in the love story. We don't root for the couple - Snag (Milliken) and Valentina (Sofía Castro). The characters compare them to Romeo and Juliet, but their surface-level attraction never feels real or palpable. It's nice to see Valentina rescuing Snag at some points, which is something he also points out in front of her mother, Victoria (Ana Ortiz). But these little things don't make the romance believable to any degree. That flashback, through repetition, also becomes tiring. In fact, repetition takes the fun out of other good things, like the constant shift between the two timelines.
Snag is simply terrible at striking the balance between humor and heartbreak. Some of the scenes that belong to the former category still manage to work, but none of the scenes that belong to the latter category work. Then, there are other confusing aspects with respect to the story. For instance, I am still not sure why Victoria wanted to kill Snag. The movie doesn't explain why Jackie (Michelle Ortiz) is in Victoria's debt and merely uses her for a silly twist. C.J. Perry's The Reaper, with her soulless eyes, looks chilling but is wasted in this half-baked script.
The action sequences, too, are thoroughly unexciting. A character, in slow motion, walks away from an explosion. It's meant to be awesome or something, yet the viewer feels nothing. That bar fight near the beginning also ends prematurely. Just when you think the fight is about to get exciting, the movie chooses to move on from the scene. Milliken has a cute puppy dog face that is pleasing to look at. Snag, like his countenance, is watchable, though you wish it had stuck to being a lightweight affair. The drama near the end never lands, and all the incomplete details seem intentional, given this is the first chapter. Someone should have told Milliken that the audience has to like the first part to get excited about the sequel. The main issue with Snag is that it uses its creative and emotional bankruptcy as an excuse to lay down the path for a second chapter.
Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times